Pages

Monday, September 16, 2013

Blog swapping by Paula Hrbacek

A
cheap and effective promotional opportunity

Self-published authors
need to be on the lookout for inexpensive opportunities to promote their
books. One opportunity is to swap blog
posts with another blogger who has a site about books or book reviews. Swapping
posts means that both authors get a chance to promote their books on another
site. I post about your book, and you
post about mine.

To participate in this
opportunity, it is important for the author to have a story that is already
written and ready to go. The story
should read like a feature or author interview, not an ad. That means that all opinions should be put in
direct quotes and attributed to someone.
Instead of saying "this book will change your life" like an ad
would say, a feature story would attribute it as someone's opinion--"This
book changed my life," said Joe Smith.

The story should
contain all the information the reader needs to know before making a purchase;
what the book is about, the author's motivation or reason for writing it, the
author's qualifications or past publications, the average star rating on Amazon
or Good Reads, quotes from reviews, and the purchase info of price, binding,
ISBN number and where to buy it. The
story can also include the author's social media sites such as a web site,
Facebook page or Twitter address. If the
story is ready to go, most bloggers will edit it to suite their style, and
appreciate the ease of posting the article.

The author then finds
bloggers that are willing to swap stories.
One place is on Linked In, in the Book Promotion group. Triberr, a service for bloggers who want to
expand their reach on Twitter, also has a discussion group for bloggers who are
seeking guest posts.

It's a simple "you
rub my back, and I'll rub yours" trade.
It's best to find bloggers in the same subject or genre as your book,
because that is where your customers are.
An author who blogs about science fiction is not the best place to
promote a romance title, but a blog about relationships and dating would have
readers who are interested in falling in love.

The author writes an
article and shows it to the blogger. The blogger decides if the article fits
his blog. The blogger and the author may
arrange that the author promotes his post once it is published.

Guest posters can use
Guestr to find guest posting opportunities in their particular niche
and pitch a post to the owner. The author provides quality content for free in
exchange for backlinks and personal profile on the listed website. It’s
currently free to join, but you must be a member to pitch a post.